


Midnight Sun

by CatchAsCatchCan



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Finnish Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Magical Realism, Magical rules of three, Soulmates, narratively appropriate use of an olive garden
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21944122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatchAsCatchCan/pseuds/CatchAsCatchCan
Summary: Tyler sets down his fork with an ominous click. “John, who the fuck is Esa Lindell?”
Relationships: John Klingberg/Esa Lindell
Comments: 35
Kudos: 186
Collections: Hockey Holidays 2019





	Midnight Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nadler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadler/gifts).

> Happy holidays Nadler, I had an absolute blast writing this and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> This story is based on a very, very loose retelling of a mishmash of old Finnish pagan myths, mostly the stories of the Peikko and of Sampsa Pellervoinen. All of my research comes from Finnish web sources, but the stories differ even between those.
> 
> Lots of thanks to KT for beta-reading.

Esa is sitting on Tyler’s kitchen counter, throwing goldfish at Roope, who’s trying to catch them in his mouth but keeps getting distracted by Denis. When John walks in the room, Esa tosses a cracker at him too, smacking him in the center of his forehead. John must make an affronted face, because Esa tips his head back and cackles, clearly already halfway to drunk. 

John sets down his two beers and hops up on the counter next to Esa, slinging an arm around his shoulders. Esa tips over to lean against him, and, oh, Esa must be way drunker than John thought. John absentmindedly plays with the short hairs at the base of Esa’s neck. He’s been around drunk-Esa enough to know that he likes that.

Esa moves against John’s shoulder, and he looks down to see a very weird expression on his face. He glances up to see Roope mirroring it. They seem to be having a very complicated conversation using only their eyebrows, and they’re both blushing a little. 

It’s about a half hour until midnight, and he hears someone in Tyler’s living room call for another round of shots when the clock officially strikes eleven thirty. 

“You know,” he says, vaguely to Esa but also to the room at large, “the people you spend New Years with are supposed to be the people you’re with for the rest of the year.”

Roope pipes up from across the room, “I thought that was just the person you kiss at midnight?” 

Denis shakes his head. “Pretty sure John is right.” Roope shoots him a betrayed look, but he ignores it, grinning. 

“Klinger just doesn’t want to have to kiss any of your ugly faces,” Esa says from where he’s still tucked into John’s side. 

Roope giggles and wiggles his eyebrows at John. John feels himself go a little red, but he ignores it. Maneuvering his way out from under Esa, he hops off the counter and steals Roope’s beer right out from under his nose while he’s distracted by something Denis is saying. Esa is slumped over with his elbows resting on his knees, and when John takes a drink from his stolen beer, Esa laughs so hard he puts his head in his hands. 

John didn’t think it was all that funny, mostly just getting back at Roope for being a perceptive dick, but he likes it when he can make Esa laugh like that. Esa is a generally giggly person, but a full body laugh is rarer. 

He blinks and realizes that he’s staring at Esa, and that Roope is smirking at him again. But Roope is an idiot, what does he know? 

If John actually thinks about it too much, Roope probably knows a lot. John doesn’t think about it.

“C’mon,” he says, turning around with a flourish. “Let’s go outside, you’re giggling too much.” 

Esa makes a ‘who, me?’ face, but dutifully hops off the counter and only wobbles a little bit. John wraps an arm around his waist to steady him, and together they slowly maneuver past Roope and Denis and out to the living room. Behind him, Roope shouts something at Esa in Finnish, loud enough that Miro laughs in another room. 

“Ignore him, he’s stupid,” Esa mutters against his shoulder. John doesn’t tell him that he didn’t understand Roope anyway.

In the living room, Tyler has already lost his shirt and is waving it over his head as he trounces someone in beer pong. Jamie is on the couch laughing at him and occasionally reaching out to try and steal Tyler’s phone from where it’s hanging dangerously out of his back pocket. 

Tyler sees them as they make their way towards the sliding glass back door in the living room and he laughs again, making an “I see you gesture” with two fingers pointing at his eyes and then back at John. “Take care of him, baby!” Tyler yells, then turns back around to effortlessly sink another ping pong ball in one motion. Faksa, his unwitting and unlucky opponent, groans. 

It takes him a few tries, but John finally manages to push open the sliding door, which is a lot harder than it looks with one hand. He shoves Esa through and on to one of the custom pool-side chairs Tyler has meticulously curated. Having chairs with your jersey design on them is a little tacky if you ask John, but Tyler has never been accused of being classy and John wouldn’t really have it any other way. 

Esa flops back against the chair and points up at the stars. Tyler’s house is far enough out in the suburbs that they can faintly see bands of the Milky Way stretching out across the night sky. “We say this is _linnunrata_, the path the birds take when they go back to the edge of the earth for the winter,” he says, tracing the lines of the sky with his fingers.

Esa has always been a surprisingly coherent, if not slightly nostalgic, drunk. John goes to sit down on the ground beside him, leaning his back against the side of the pool chair. When he tilts his head back to look up, it almost rests on Esa’s thigh. 

“The birds,” Esa continues, accent a little thicker the way it always gets when he talks about home, “live in paradise. _Lintukoto_.” 

“_Lintukoto_,” Esa repeats, knocking the back of his hand against John’s head a few times before John gets it.

“_Lintukoto_,” he repeats, accent not quite there, but not as far off as the first time Esa had tried to teach him a word in Finnish. 

Esa laughs and pats his head with the care of someone truly drunk. “Good, getting better. Not as bad. Won’t have to get Rads to fine you for speaking Finnish badly again.”

“I only speak it when you make me!” John says.

“Speaking it badly is still a fine, even if it’s because I make you,” Esa counters. 

John hums in acknowledgment. Esa doesn’t like to talk about it, but John knows he gets homesick sometimes. Having Miro and Roope helps and getting to speak his mother language is a blessing he knows Esa doesn’t take for granted, but on holidays like today, their small hockey family doesn’t quite make up for missing his family back in Finland. 

“Tell me more about them, about the birds,” John says, and closes his eyes. It had been a long day, with an overtime loss to the Canadiens on home ice just a few hours before. He just wants to rest for a bit and let Esa talk about anything and everything.

Esa indulges him, which is honestly something he does too much. “We like birds in Finland. Whole world was formed from an egg, you know…”

And he keeps talking while John gradually drifts off. Beyond the shut door, he can hear people start to cheer as the countdown to the new year hits ten minutes, but it’s muffled so that the only thing he can really make out is Seggy’s signature high pitched shriek. 

Esa is still talking, has moved on to describing how birds bring the soul to the body and take it when you die, when John finally drifts off. He thinks for a second about getting up and finding someone to kiss at midnight, but he decides he would rather stay here, slightly tipsy and with Esa’s hand carding through his hair. 

He knows he’ll get ruthlessly chirped for spending the last minutes of 2019 out on Tyler’s deck with Esa instead of inside with the rest of the team, but right now it’s the last thing he could imagine caring about. The night is balmy and Texan and the moon is bright and Esa is still talking quietly as he slips into sleep. 

He blinks awake probably only an hour later, because he can hear the party winding down. It seems much colder now than it was before, and when he turns his head, Esa isn’t there anymore. He probably went back inside to get another drink, John thinks, and gets up to go find him.

But, when he stumbles his way back into Tyler’s house, Esa isn’t with the rest of the people in the living room, or in the kitchen, or in the other living room. There aren’t that many people left, and Tyler is absurdly picky about who he lets upstairs to the bedrooms, so John isn’t sure how he’s missing him. Maybe he went home, but that’s unlikely, because John drove him here and Esa is always good about remembering to tell him if he’s leaving early. 

He doesn’t quite have the energy to be affronted, but he’s sure he’ll work up to it in the morning. Maybe leave Esa a strongly worded voicemail or throw tape at him at the next practice. 

John throws himself down on Tyler’s couch and accepts that he’s probably going to be sleeping here. Tyler is always pretty good about opening his house to rookies and singles, and he makes a mean scrambled egg in the morning because he’s seemingly hangover-proof. John is just working out the finer points of his voicemail script, something dramatic about how he’d gone all the way to Finland for Esa that summer and couldn’t even get a simple goodbye at a holiday party, when he falls asleep again.

When he wakes up, for real this time, it’s to the sun in his eyes because he forgot to close the blinds on Tyler’s sliding glass door last night. His mouth tastes like he tried to eat a towel and his eyes are gritty. 

Blinking, he stumbles into Tyler’s kitchen by sheer muscle memory. The man himself is sitting on his own counter shoveling eggs into his mouth and looking none the worse for wear. He looks up at John’s entrance and his eyes go wide. “Damn Klinger, you look like you could use this more than me,” he says, and hands John the coffee cup he had been drinking out of. 

John downs the second-hand coffee in two sips and feels halfway human again. 

“By the way,” Tyler adds conversationally, “any idea why there are fucking goldfish cracker crumbs all over my kitchen floor? It looks like an army of toddlers got in a food fight in here.”

“Not totally incorrect,” John says. “Esa got in a contest with Roope to see how many he could throw into his mouth.”

Tyler blinks at him. “Who?”

“Roope? You know him? Whiz kid who scores us all our goals now?” 

Tyler waves his hand. “Yeah, duh I know Roope. I mean—oh whatever. Do you want some hangover eggs?”

Tyler is always so goddamn weird, but John would kill for some hangover eggs. “I would kill for some hangover eggs,” he says, and Tyler slides a plate over to him. 

“Help yourself, baby,” Tyler says, and points over his shoulder to a pan full of cheesy eggs. Tyler can cook exactly two things, and it’s these eggs and lasagna. John would never turn them down. 

“Did you see how Esa got home last night?” John asks. 

Tyler’s face screws up again. “Did you come up with a new nickname for Miro? Because you know Jamie and I gotta approve those, right?”

Jamie and Tyler absolutely do not get final say over nicknames, and John tells him as much. Tyler just rolls his eyes. 

“Esa Lindell,” John says, “My d-partner for the last season? You’ve met.”

Tyler chokes on the huge bite of egg he had just taken. After John thumps his back a few times, Tyler turns to him with confused eyes. “Did Gally hit you hard last night or something? How much did you have to drink, my man, because I think you might still be drunk.”

John hasn’t been this lost since his first season with the Texas Stars. “Are you joking?,” He asks and traces Tyler’s face for any sign that he might be. Tyler has always been a shit liar though, and he wears every emotion on his sleeve. Right now, his face is showing nothing but concern, verging on panic. 

“Seggy—Tyler—you’ve met Esa. He was at the party last night.”

Tyler sets down his fork with an ominous click. “John, who the fuck is Esa Lindell?”

* * *

John stares at Tyler for a full thirty seconds, fakes a terrible laugh, manages to convince Tyler he was joking, and then practically sprints out of Tyler’s door without looking back. 

He’s dialing Esa’s number before he’s even fully in the car, but it goes straight to voicemail. He dials again and the number has been disconnected. John pulls the phone away from his ear and just stares at it, listening to the faint dial tone. 

Quickly, before he can think too hard, he texts Miro, Roope, and Jamie the same message: “Do you know where Esa is?” 

Roope responds with the question mark iPhone reaction; Jamie says, “who??”; and Miro doesn’t respond at all. He leaves all of them on read and hopes they think he’s just hungover or hallucinating or anything other than the truth. 

John doesn’t even notice that his hands are shaking until he goes to look up Esa’s social media, but his Instagram page won’t load and a quick Facebook search pulls up only an eighty-year-old man from Helsinki. He can’t even hold on to his phone, so he just drops it into his lap and breathes.

He can’t be going crazy, he knows Esa was there last night. He saw him, touched him, talked to him. He misses him. 

John leans forward and rests his head against the steering wheel. He’s sure Tyler is watching his car and has never been more thankful for tinted windows. He has to get away from here. 

He takes several deep breaths and finally manages to start the car. The drive back to his house is a blur but he makes it inside before he collapses against the wall of his entryway. Thank god he lives alone. 

John doesn’t know what the fuck is going on. Last night, he had talked to Esa until he fell asleep. He remembers it, knows for sure that it happened. He’s known Esa for years, he can’t have made all that up. 

The first time they met, the year was 2011. The rink playlist was mostly Adele and Pitbull, and John was a weedy, pale nineteen year old. They had been on the same Jokerit U20 lineup for so, so briefly, but even at seventeen, Esa had made an impression. From then on, they just kept missing each other.

John went to World Juniors in 2012, and Esa went two years later. They both got gold.

They both went to Worlds in 2015, but John got knocked out of the playoffs the round before Sweden would have played Finland. They accidentally ran into each other and got lunch once before John had to fly back home. 

Esa had been assigned to the Texas Stars almost exactly four months after John had been called up for the last time. John had texted vague congratulations to a new American number that he had gotten from a friend of a friend, just one Jokerit alumni to another. Esa had sent back three laughing emojis and said, “I’ll be in Dallas soon.”

When Esa had finally been called up to Dallas, he had gone straight up to John and said, “So, you took my 3?” 

John had been at a loss, until Esa reached over and tapped the number stitched on his shoulder. “My 3. You took it?” 

John remembers smiling and saying, “Took you long enough to get here.” Esa’s face had split open with his customary wide grin and they had hugged like long lost friends, not like two people who played one game together and texted once every so often. 

When Esa had been called up for the last time, John waited with bated breath as eight, nine, ten games passed. When ten finally came and went, he had thrown himself at Esa the moment they came off the ice, cheering and whooping in the locker room. 

They played like they were meant to play together. For the better part of three seasons, Esa had been his left-hand man. Monty occasionally put the defensive lines through the blender, but at the end of the day, Esa was always his common denominator. They had been on the ice together for John’s series winning goal against the Predators and for Maroon’s playoff ending goal for the Blues. They had been in this together and now Esa is gone and John doesn’t know why.

John can’t be making up eight years of history.

But Tyler also can’t just forget a person. And Esa’s name doesn’t show up in any Google search or on any social media. His phone number is disconnected. Another quick search shows that John has apparently been playing all season with … _Sekera_? 

What the _fuck_. 

John sets his phone down on the floor and just sits. He knocks his head back against the wall a couple of times. He clenches his eyes shut as fear and panic fade into sheer rage. Esa is his friend, maybe his best friend, and he’s just gone. He’s gone and no one other than John even knows or gives a shit.

The only reason he makes it through New Year’s Day is because they have the day off. He sits in his entryway for what must be nearly an hour, staring into space and fighting off the twin urges to cry and scream. In the past, when he felt like stress or nerves were crushing him, he had Esa to turn to. Not so much, now.

Eventually he levers himself up and decides that the only plausible solution is to get absolutely plastered. Maybe he’ll wake up and Esa will be there, or he’ll wake up having forgotten him as well. Either way, it can’t be worse than how he feels now. 

John feels hollow. He sets about filling that hole with alcohol. 

It works surprisingly well, at least until he has to wake up for practice the next morning and feels like something crawled into his throat and died. 

He can tell this practice is going to be a rough one, even without the hangover. He can’t quite tell if the pounding in his right temple is from the drinking or from the mindfuck of having an entire teammate disappear overnight. 

He’s proven absolutely right. Practice is one of the worst he’s had in a long while, maybe since he’s been in Dallas. He can’t make a pass connect, he can’t seem to anticipate Sekera at all. He keeps turning to make comments to someone who isn’t there to respond—It feels like he starts every sentence with, “Hey Esa!” before cutting himself off. 

After an agonizing two hours, one of the coaches shouts, “Jesus Klingberg, it’s like you’ve never played with him! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

John responds with the head nod and agreement that’s expected of him, but all he really wants to do is yell back. Of course he looks like he’s never played with Sekera, it’s because he never fucking has! 

He holds his tongue, but only because he can imagine how Esa would look at him if he actually swore at a coach. 

John comes off the ice not feeling any better. He wants to get in a fight or throw something across the room. He contemplates breaking a stick over his leg in the locker room, but that would be a surefire way to get a talking-to from Jamie and he’d really rather not right now. Instead, he just takes an absurdly long shower, and when he gets out, the entire locker room is empty. Thank God. 

He gets into his car and just sits there, forehead resting against the cool glass of his window. He can’t keep doing this on his own. There has to be someone else out there who remembers, who’s just as confused as he is. 

Before he knows what he’s doing, John is hammering on Roope’s front door. Roope pulls it open a few minutes later, looking like he just woke up. “What’s going on?” he says, like he can see John’s panic. 

“Do you remember Esa?” John demands, and he’s sure that he looks absolutely insane. “Esa Lindell, do you remember him?”

Roope just stands in the doorway, jaw slack. “Klinger, I think you should come inside.” 

John resists Roope’s hand on his sleeve. “No! Roope, I need you to tell me if you remember him. I’ll leave you alone but I need to know.” 

Roope puts his hands out cautiously. “Klinger, I don’t know who you’re talking about, but you’re scaring me. Come inside, please.”

All the fight drains out of John at once, and he slumps forward into Roope’s grasp. Roope inhales sharply, but wraps John in a hug. “Klinger, what’s going on?”

“Can we go inside?” John asks, quietly. 

Roope sort of walks them backwards into the living room and sits John down on a chair. “What’s going on?” he asks again, and he looks a little scared.

John puts his head in his hands. “Esa is missing, Roope, and I don’t know what to do, because no one else remembers him. Just me.”

Roope stares at him. “Klinger. John. I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Yes! You do!” John exclaims. “You’ve met, you were good friends.”

Roope just shakes his head, but he sinks down into a chair so that he can look John in the eyes. “I really, really don’t know who you’re talking about. Are you okay? Did you get hit at practice?”

“No! I didn’t get hit, and I wish people would stop asking me that!” John tugs at his hair and his breath comes out in gasps. “He’s my best friend and d-partner and we’ve played together for three and a half seasons and now no one knows who he is!” 

Roope puts his chin in his hand, covering his mouth. “Three and a half years?”

“Yes! Yes, since 2016. You know him, Roope. He helped you and Miro find places to live. You would always hide away in the locker room and talk only in Finnish until they had to fine you to stop.” 

Roope just shakes his head, but he leans forward. John has never lied to Roope about anything that mattered, and he hopes Roope trusts him enough to know that he wouldn’t lie about something like this.

John is on a roll now. “He likes to prank people, but he’s terrible at it. He always forces all of you to buy sunscreen in bulk. He scored the game-winning goal in our last win against the Blues in the playoff run. He’s—” 

Roope cuts him off. “Sekera scored the game winning goal. I remember.”

John almost screams. “See, that’s not possible because as far as I know, Sekera was playing with the Oilers last season.” 

Roope stares at him, then inhales sharply. John freezes. The room holds its breath. 

“What?” John asks, hope blooming in his chest for the first time in two days.

Roope blinks hard and scrunches up his nose, then shakes his head like he’s trying to get water out of his ears. “I remember playing against Sekera. He kept defending against me. Or—I think he did?”

“I can’t remember.” He stares at John, eyes wide. “Why can’t I remember?” 

John looks up, eyes wide. “Don’t you get it? Sekera couldn’t have been playing on my left all last season because he was playing on a different team!” John jumps up and starts pacing back and forth across Roope’s threadbare grey rug. ”There was someone else there, now can you remember him?”

Roope doesn’t say anything, just stares into the middle distance. 

“Try to remember him!”

Roope squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his temples like he’s got a headache. “I don’t—I can’t—”

Then his eyes snap open. “Someone helped me find this house. There had to have been someone else here, because I couldn’t speak enough English to negotiate.”

John prompts him, excitement building. “Miro wasn’t here yet, so who spoke enough Finnish to translate?”

Roope snaps his fingers several times in the air like he’s trying to spark a memory. “No one. There was no one else Finnish up with me in Dallas that year. There was someone in my house, negotiating with the agent lady, but I don’t know who he was.”

John can’t help himself. He starts smiling. “Roope, that was him, I swear. That was Esa. You’re remembering him because he was _there_.” 

Roope is shaking his head, hair flying out around his face in a cloud of confusion. “You can’t just forget a person. It’s not possible.”

“Then how do you explain any of this? How do I remember a person on the ice with me for three years, a person who helped you settle in to Texas, who scored game-winners for us?”

Roope finally looks John in the eye. His hands are shaking.

“I think we need to talk to Sebastian.”

“Sebastian?”

“Aho.”

* * *

They play the Hurricanes in a week and a half, and Roope convinces him to wait until they can see Sebastian in person. He never clarifies how the Carolina Hurricanes’ leading goal scorer can possibly help him, but John is willing to try anything at this point. 

John tries to keep himself busy in those ten days, spending all his free time at the rink. He tries to get used to playing with Sekera on his left. He’s not Esa, he’s never going to play like he can read John’s mind, but it gets to the point where their play is passable, if not good.

And when he gets home after practices and games, he takes to writing down every memory of Esa he has, starting from that first meeting in Helsinki. If somehow he forgets or he can’t bring him back, he wants something preserved. Something that said: John’s best friend was here and he mattered and he was remembered. 

It's during these ten days when John first dreams of Esa. 

He’s sitting in the hallway again, back against the wall like that very first day. Except, Esa is sitting against the opposite wall, smiling at him. John almost wants to scramble up, but finds that he’s too relaxed to make any sudden movements.

John stares at Esa and tries to memorize his face. His shockingly blonde hair, his too-big nose, his crinkly eyes. He’s missed him. 

“What are you doing here?” he whispers. 

Esa doesn’t say anything, just looks at him. He shakes his head minutely, like it takes effort to even move that small amount. He starts to open his mouth, and just gets out, “John—” before he vanishes. 

John lunges forward, calm evaporated, to try and grab him, but just as he starts to move he wakes up. He’s laying in his bed, on top of the covers, breathing like he just ran a marathon. 

For the first time since he woke up on New Year’s Day, he lets himself cry. 

Every time he goes to sleep after that, he’s both hopeful and terrified that he’s going to see Esa again. It takes him a long time to fall asleep each night, and he knows the circles under his eyes are getting dark enough to make Jamie worry.

It’s the night before they go to Carolina when it finally happens again.

John closes his eyes in his bedroom, and when he opens them again, he’s sitting out on Tyler’s deck. His back is resting against the side of the chair just like he had been that night, but when he looks up, the sky is entirely dark. There are no stars. He can feel someone behind him, but he doesn’t look over. Something tells him, instinctually, that if he does, Esa will vanish again.

They sit in silence for what feels like hours, but must really only be a few minutes. John swears he can hear Esa breathing behind him, but he doesn’t tip his head back to look. Eventually, the silence gets too much, and he whispers, “Why am I the only one who can remember you?”

It feels like the dream freezes. “I can’t tell you that,” Esa answers, and it sounds like his voice is coming from far away. John missed him so much. 

“What can you tell me?” he asks, almost afraid of the answer.

“Not much. I don’t know where I am, John.” Behind him, Esa takes a shuddering breath. “It feels like I’m asleep, but not quite.”

John buries his head in his arms. “Tell me how I can find you. Esa, I miss you. I need you here.”

Esa doesn’t answer, and when John chances to look behind him, Esa is gone. He sits there in the dark, alone under the starless sky, but when he looks up, there is a flock of white birds flying across the sky in a long line. 

John wakes up in his bed, again. He is still alone.

* * *

Roope and John meet Sebastian Aho in an Olive Garden somewhere in North Carolina. 

“Tell him what you do, Sepe,” Roope says. He and Sebastian seem to be locked in a low-level staring contest. “You know what I’m talking about.”

“My family keeps stories,” Sebastian says, still looking only at Roope. “We pass down folktales and myths, because someone needs to remember them.”

“Why?” John asks, and Sebastian looks him in the eye for the first time all dinner.

“Because sometimes they come true,” he says, and a chill runs down John’s spine. 

“So,” Sebastian says, and points a breadstick at Roope. “What can I do for you, Ace of Spades?” 

And so Roope starts talking, with John jumping in every so often to fill in a detail or two. Roope switches to Finnish midway through, gesturing wildly with his hands. John is able to pick out a few words from Esa’s haphazard Finnish lessons, but he can’t put together a full sentence. Instead, he methodically tears a breadstick into tiny pieces. 

Finally, Roope stops talking and Sebastian sits back in his seat. 

“_Peikko_,” he says.

“Bless you,” John says.

“No,” Sebastian replies through an eye roll, “_Peikko_.” 

John looks at Roope. Roope looks at Sebastian. 

“They’re the kind of monsters that Finnish mothers warn their children about. They disguise themselves as mountains and take you if you stray too far from home,” Sebastian says. 

“Esa was talking about home, you said?” At John’s answering nod, Sebastian points his breadstick at Roope decisively. “He was taken by a _Peikko_. They like to steal children who are, um—” and he says something in Finnish to Roope. 

“They take people who are homesick,” Roope translates.

“Well, how the fuck do I get him back?” John asks, almost yells. A restaurant patron turns around to glare at him. 

Sebastian frowns. “You’d have to offer it something equal. An exchange, in the ritual way. The most common way is with winter, spring, and summer. Winter and spring will be rejected and the summer accepted.”

John laughs incredulously. “The _Peikko_ will give Esa back for some seasonal gift exchange?” 

“No,” Sebastian shakes his head. “Not a gift. An offering, from winter, spring, and summer. You’ll have to find them. They’re usually marked, for something like this.” 

“Something like this?”

He’s about to answer, but a server comes by with heaping bowls of pasta. John doesn’t even remember ordering. The table is silent as the server sets down their plates, but as she walks away, Sebastian continues quietly. 

“_Peikko_ are creatures of the forest, and stealing someone away upsets the goddess of the forest. She likes to leave a way for them to be found.” 

John’s head is spinning. “Is that why I keep seeing Esa in my dreams?”

Sebastian drops his fork. 

“Is that why you keep _what_?” 

“I’ve dreamed about him twice. He talked to me.”

Sebastian begins talking in rapidfire Finnish to Roope, and Roope responds with equal energy. A slow grin spreads across his face before he turns to stare at John.

“What?” he asks, defensive. “I’m not lying!”

“Oh, I don’t think you are,” Roope says. “Sebastian, why don’t you tell him what you told me?”

Sebastian looks annoyed at being ordered about by Roope, but does as he’s told. “You must be tied together in some way. It’s rare, but it must be—” and he frowns and says a complicated word in Finnish to Roope. “I don’t know what you call it in Swedish or English.”

Roope grins. “I think they would say ‘soulmates.’”

John's heart stops and he blushes straight to the roots of his hair. “Soulmates?” 

“It’s not like some stupid movie thing,” Sebastian says sharply. “It’s just, sometimes the gods will decide to bind certain people tightly together. There’s no obvious marking or magic moment, but it’s there.” 

Roope laughs. He seems delighted to have found something even slightly hopeful. “Well, I think it’s romantic.”

“It’s not romantic, it just is what it is,” Sebastian says, and Roope rolls his eyes. 

Sebastian turns back to John. “I bet you kept running into each other for years.”

John nods, still lost. “We played on the same team in Helsinki.” 

Sebastian’s eyes narrow. “And in the AHL?”

“No, we missed each other by a few months.” 

Now it’s Roope’s turn to interject, looking contemplative. “But you met again at World Juniors, right? And when he got called up for the first time. That’s what you said.” 

John can only nod.

Now Roope is on a roll. “And, you stole his number! You wear the number three because of him!”

“It’s not because of him,” John protests weakly. Roope doesn’t look convinced. 

Sebastian is now focusing all of his attention on John for the first time all meal. “Klingberg, if what you’re saying is true, your lives are bound up in triplicate. You and he have played on three of the same teams. You met three times before he played on the Stars. You both wear three, and what's more important is you took his three.” 

“So?” 

“Three is a powerful number, Klingberg.” 

“Like the three offerings?”

“Exactly,” Sebastian says, then checks his watch. “I have to go, my team is expecting me back. I wish I could help you more.” 

Roope stands and hugs him, thanking him quietly in their shared language. 

Sebastian pulls back to look at John. “Good luck, Klingberg. I may not like your countrymen, but it sounds like you love one of mine.”

And John can’t say anything to that, because God help him, he does. Him and Roope both, they’re here because they love Esa. John is just starting to think it might be in different ways. 

As they pay and walk out in seperate directions, John turns to Roope and says, “Does he hate you?”

Roope just quirks an eyebrow.

“Well, there was a lot of emphatic, uh, breadstick pointing,” John says. 

Roope laughs, but there’s a glint in his eye. “It’s because I’m winning.”

“Winning at what?”

“Life, mostly.”

And John chooses not to say anything to that. Finns are so fucking weird.

* * *

That night, John dreams about Esa again. 

This time, they’re skating around the rink like it’s a regular practice, but the stands are dark and all John can see is the ice and the puck and Esa. 

He can see now how seamlessly they skate together, how Esa can practically read his mind. They pass the puck back and forth, up and down the ice, bouncing it off the side boards and making increasingly improbable passes that always, always connect. 

Eventually, they slow down until they’re skating slow circles around center ice, the only sound their skates against the ice. Slowly, they drift to a stop and John reaches out to touch Esa’s arm. 

Esa jerks back. “You can’t,” he says, and he sounds like he wants to cry. “I barely have enough energy to talk, I’m sorry.” 

“I miss you,” John says.

“You can’t pass to Sekera like you can pass to me, right?” Esa says, and laughs. 

“You know that’s not the reason why,” John says. He takes a deep breath. “Did you know?”

“Did I know what?” Esa asks, very carefully. But John knows him, knows that Esa was waiting for this question.

“You know what I mean, Esa.”

Esa won’t look him in the eye. “I suspected, but I didn’t know for sure. Not until I came here.”

No one says anything for a long while, then Esa continues. “This place, wherever I am, it’s like I’m asleep, but not quite. It’s like an in-between. It’s easier to see how things are tied together here.” 

“Tied together?” 

“Everyone is tied together; or at least the most important people are. I can see them easier here. Miro, Roope, Jamie, Tyler. Old national and juniors teammates, like Patrik and Sebastian. My family. You.”

“Me?” John’s voice seems like it echoes around the empty dream rink.

Esa doesn’t quite answer the question. “It’s like I can just barely see something out of the corner of my eyes, and if I follow it I get closer and closer until they’re almost right there in front of me. It’s like following a loose jersey thread.”

“Can you talk to everyone?” 

“No,” Esa says, “No, I can only talk to you. Our tie is—a lot stronger.” 

“Stronger?” John asks, and Esa opens his mouth to explain, and John wakes up. 

Soulmates, John thinks, or something close to it. Two people tied together by fate or by the gods or just by themselves. What was it that Sebastian had said? Lives bound together in triplicate. 

In the weeks that follow, John and Roope wait for some sort of sign and John dreams of Esa every night.

* * *

Four weeks later, the Jets roll into town and it snows in the middle of a Texan February. John hasn’t seen it snow once in his entire stay in Texas, let alone in February. 

John calls Roope that second he sees the first reports of heavy snowfall, newscasters looking perplexed. The coldest day in Dallas in sixty years. 

“Winter,” they say at the same time, the moment the call connects. 

“Someone on the Jets is winter,” Roope says. John feels electric, excited and terrified in the exact same moment. “I just don’t know who.”

John remembers, _Old national and juniors teammates, like Patrik and Sebastian._ “I think I may have an idea,” he says and Roope laughs, delighted. 

Roope pulls Patrik aside during warmups, skating up to him in the spirit of inter-Finn unity, John presumes. They talk for a long moment, then Roope skates back over to the Stars’ side as Tyler shoots him a bemused, if not slightly betrayed look. 

“He’s going to meet us after the game. He’s a real bitch after a loss though, so be ready for that,” Roope advises and laughs. “Honestly, I can still barely remember anything when I’m not focusing hard, but I feel like he and Esa don’t like each other much.” 

“I don’t understand your national team at all,” John says. 

Roope just pats him on the head. John gets the feeling that he’s not the first to say that. 

The game itself drags on, each period seeming to last longer than the last. John knows he isn’t playing one of the best games of his life, and honestly, he’s lucky he didn’t get benched midway through. Miro carries the damn team on his back, and John resolves, as he often does during long games, that Miro will never have to buy a drink again. 

He’s pretty sure Patrik is staring at him the whole game. 

When they stumble off the ice after a poorly-fought, one-goal loss, John doesn’t feel anything but relieved. He rushes through showering, then puts his clothes on so fast that he ends up wasting a few minutes detangling his inside-out shirt. 

Finally, Roope tugs him out of the locker room and down the hall to where he can see Patrik standing against a wall, looking at something on his phone. He doesn’t seem confused, which John takes to mean that Roope hasn’t explained everything yet. 

“What do you want, Roope?” Patrik asks, not hostile but also not kindly. “I can’t be too late getting back to the bus.”

“Did your _äiti_ ever tell you about the _Peikko_?” Roope starts, and Patrik’s face blanches more than it already is. 

Patrik puts his phone down and turns his full attention on Roope. “Yes. I never wandered from my house as a kid.”

“Someone wandered too far, Patty, and we need help bringing him back.” 

John jumps in. “We need three offerings, and we think you’re the first.”

Patrik rolls his eyes. “Goddamn winter. Of course, I’m always winter.”

Everyone pauses. 

“You’ve made an offering before?” Roope says, sounding shocked.

“Winnipeg,” Patrik says, “is a harsh place to live.” He doesn’t elaborate, and Roope doesn’t ask him to. 

“What can you offer?” Roope asks, tapping his foot restlessly. John realizes that his hands are clenching and unclenching at his sides. 

“The same thing I always do. A game,” Patrik says. “The first gift is always rejected anyway, but the threat of a loss is serious enough that it usually works.”

Then, he starts off down the hall towards the door without another explanation, leaving John and Roope to trail behind him. He briefly dips into a supply room, then pops back out. Once they open the door, they’re hit with a wall of cold air, even though most of the snow has already been cleared. 

Patrik kneels on the ground in front of a patch of dirt and starts digging at it with his fingers. 

“Well,” he snaps, looking up, “don’t stand there like idiots.”

John and Roope drop down and help dig too, until they’ve got a small, shallow hole in the ice cold dirt. 

“It’s a _Kuppikivi_,” Patrik explains. “A prayer-cup, for offerings.”

Roope looks skeptical. “_Kuppikivi_ are usually made of rock, though.”

“This is as good as we’re going to get,” Patrik replies, a little snippy.

Patrik reaches into his hoodie pocket and pulls out a puck, then nestles it in the small hole. He says a few words in Finnish, then stands up again. 

“There,” he says, “that usually does it.” And then he turns and walks back inside without another word. John realizes at that exact moment that they never even explained who went missing or why. Damn, Winnipeg must be a strange place. 

Outside, it starts to snow again.

* * *

He sees Esa again that night. 

When he tells him about Patrik and his offering, Esa laughs so hard he doubles over and winks out of existence.

* * *

It takes two more weeks, but one morning John wakes up to a daffodil growing up through his welcome mat. He sends a picture to Roope, who replies with a series of exclamation points, then calls John while in the middle of blow-drying his hair. 

“Spring!” he shouts over the sound of the dryer, before clicking it off. “Who is it?”

John has no idea. There’s no game today, just an optional practice. Someone on the team, then. 

That is, John has no idea until he’s lacing up his skates and Miro walks into the locker room, holding a huge bouquet and looking totally hopeless.

“Some woman outside gave me these?” He says, looking completely confused. “What do I do with them?”

John elbows Roope in the side, then nods to Miro. Roope’s eyes go wide. Of course it’s Miro, the baby of the team. He was practically Esa’s rookie. 

They pull Miro aside after practice and drag him to Esa’s favorite burger restaurant in hopes of sparking something, a memory. Miro takes the flowers with him. 

They take turns explaining the whole story to him, from start to finish. Miro doesn’t ask any questions, but his eyebrows scrunch down lower and lower on his forehead with practically every word. Finally, he nods. 

“Something feels wrong all season,” he says. “Now it makes sense. Someone is missing.”

John and Roope nod quickly. 

“Someone is missing,” Miro repeats. “I can’t see him, but I know. Supposed to be another person here,” he says, and points to John’s left. 

John takes a deep breath, feeling like something is constricting his lungs. From his right, Roope bumps their shoulders together. “Yes,” John says. “Exactly, and we need to make an offering to get him back.”

Miro considers. “I am spring? The flowers?” 

Roope nods. 

Miro returns the nod decisively. “We should go to my apartment. I have an old family _Kuppikivi_, from my mom.” 

When they file into Miro’s apartment, he heads straight for the kitchen sink. He opens up the cabinet and pulls out a small rock, about the size of John’s head. In the center sits a small, worn divot, something that looks like it was carved down through years of wear. 

“Patrik just had us dig a hole in the dirt,” John blurts out. 

Miro snorts. “Of course he did.”

He carries the rock to the kitchen table, clearing off a small layer of papers littering the surface. Then, Miro goes back to the hallway and grabs the bouquet from where it had been lying discarded on the coffee table. 

“Returning a gift from a goddess is a big thing,” he says, and lies the flowers down so that most of the buds are sitting within the cup of the rock. 

The moment the flowers touch the inside of the _Kuppikivi_, they begin to shrivel and wilt away. It starts with the smallest flowers, as they curve in on each other and shed their petals until eventually the whole bouquet is brown and dead. 

“Rejected!” Roope crows. “Only summer is left!” 

Miro laughs at him, swatting his shoulder. 

“I hope you find him,” he says, turning to John and ignoring Roope’s antics. “You seemed sad lately.”

“We will,” John promises. Outside, a large bird takes off from Miro’s windowsill with a loud flap of its wings.

* * *

John is used to seeing Esa in his dreams by now. They’ve taken to talking quietly, reminiscing about past games and dreaming about the future. It’s almost March, coming up on the third month since the disappearance, when Esa tells him that he doesn’t have a lot of time left.

“You need to hurry,” Esa says, holding up a translucent hand. “I think I’m losing strength.” 

His voice has a barely concealed tremor, and John wishes that he could reach across and wrap an arm around his shoulders, the way he used to after a hard loss. It’s the first time Esa has looked defeated, and he seems so small.

“I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to do this,” he continues. “I’m so tired. _Peikko_ forget that their captives have to eat, I think.” 

John feels a cold sweat drip down the back of his neck. “We’re going to find you,” he promises, not for the first time. 

Esa smiles at him, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m glad you’re here with me,” he says. “I wouldn’t want anyone else.” 

John feels his lips quirk up. “I wouldn’t want anyone else to have this,” he says. John wishes so deeply that he could reach over and touch him. 

It’s the first time they’ve really mentioned this, the thing growing between them. John knows how he feels, the way that it feels both like something is expanding inside his chest and crushing him all at once. The way he thinks about kissing Esa every time he sees him now, the way he dreams about just holding him.

He takes a chance and reaches his hand out. His fingers pass through Esa’s hand at first, but Esa makes a face of fierce concentration and his palm solidifies under John’s touch. John laces their fingers together and they stand there, both holding their breath, as they clutch each other’s hands for one, two, three seconds before Esa winks out of existence.

* * *

Roope and John spend another week fruitlessly searching for the third and final sign, before Roope flops down on John’s couch and suggests that they try to find the _Peikko_ first, instead of just waiting to find the last offering. 

It’s, surprisingly, not a bad suggestion. John says this to Roope and gets a couch cushion thrown at him for his trouble. 

The very next night, John walks outside, looks up at the stars and then immediately calls Roope. “I think I might know where he is,” he says without introducing himself. Roope is at his house within seven minutes. John doesn’t want to even think about what kind of speed limits he broke. 

“The last time I saw Esa,” John explains, “we were on Tyler’s back patio.” 

“Okay?” Roope asks, drawing out the first syllable. “What’s special about Tyler’s back patio?”

“It’s in the hill country, that part where the hills are so big they look like small mountains,” John says, “and Esa was telling me about the path the birds take to paradise by following the Milky Way.”

Roope nods. “_Linnunrata_.” 

“I think we need to follow the Milky Way too.”

They’re in John’s car two minutes later, speeding towards Tyler’s house with Roope behind the wheel. They keep driving past his house and towards the small range of large hills. Overhead, the Milky Way is clearly visible, large bands of it stretching across the night sky. One trail of stars dips down below the horizon above a towering outcropping of earth.

“There,” John points, “that’s where we need to go.”

“I see it,” Roope says, and guns the engine. The road eventually diverges away, and Roope takes a hard left, swerving off the road and onto the dirt. The car bumps and jostles over rocks and small shrubs.

Suddenly, John becomes aware of a growing cacophony of sound, like a hundred drums beating. 

“What the fuck is that,” Roope swears, never taking his eyes off the road. 

John rolls down his window and sticks his head out. When he looks up, he sees scores of birds flying overhead. He barely has time to pull himself back inside before the flock envelopes the car in a storm of black feathers. 

Roope, to his credit, never slows down. Just as suddenly as they came, the birds are gone, overtaking the car and flying straight for the mountain range. The only sign that they had been there was the huge black feathers caught in the windshield wipers. 

“Well,” John starts, “that’s fucking ominous.”

The rest of the ride is short, about ten minutes of rough terrain and small rolling hills, before they reach a point too steep to drive up. 

Roope parks the car and John jumps out, before turning to say, “Let’s get this the fuck over with.”

“But we haven’t found summer?” Roope says, but he dutifully steps out of the car. 

John takes a deep breath, thinks about soulmates, about birds and dreams and the number three. Then, he says the thing that’s been poking at the back of his mind since they talked to Miro. “I think I might be summer.”

Roope pauses, then leans over and bumps their shoulders together. “Of course.” 

John stares at the hill. He can see a small, almost indistinct path up, but more than that, he feels a tugging in the center of his chest urging him forward. Esa had said it was like following a string you can only see out of the corner of your eye. John gets it now.

They slowly pick their way through the brush, stepping carefully over sharp plants and exposed rocks. The only light above is the moon and the broad expanse of stars overhead, but it’s enough to make out the safest footholds. 

John is breathing heavily, and beside him Roope isn’t faring much better. It’s a combination of nerves and climbing, he thinks, and puts one foot in front of the other with increasing resolve. They’re going to finish this tonight. He’s going to find Esa. 

Roope pauses beside him and silently points up ahead to where the rock face splits open into a gaping dark maw. They pick their way across the rest of the rock face silently, but before they step in, Roope reaches over and squeezes John’s hand once. 

It’s pitch black inside the cavern, and Roope pulls out his phone to shine a flashlight around. The space isn’t large, only a few feet deep and little taller than it is wide. The floor beneath their feet is flat, but the rocky ceiling curves up to a point and the far wall is filled with huge boulders. The sides of the little cave are littered with old discarded shoes, a few backpacks, and several of what John recognizes with a chill to be bones.

With a rumble, the cave starts to shake, and Roope grabs John’s shoulder. Before he can pull him out of the cave, the cave around him contracts and small pebbles rain down, before a huge eye opens in the far wall. 

Roope lets out a muffled scream and John stops breathing. The eye is pinning him in place, staring directly at him.

The room shakes and a slow, deep voice booms around them, bouncing off the walls to create a terrifying echo. It sounds like it's coming from all around them. “Do you bring an offering for me?” 

John steps forward, suddenly feeling brave. “Can I see him?”

“No,” the cave rumbles again and more rocks shake loose from the walls. “Give me your offering.” 

John takes a deep breath and walks toward the eye. “I offer you a confession.”

The eye narrows at him, but doesn’t look away. 

John’s had a long time to think about this, about what he would offer to give up to have Esa back. But the truth is, this creature was able to find Esa because he strayed too far from home. And John knows how to make this place home for Esa. The confession he gives will have to loosen the power the mountain holds over Esa, but it will also have to be enough of a risk for the creature to accept. 

Truthfully, he’s known what he wanted to say for weeks, ever since Esa first appeared in his dreams. 

John screws up his courage, closes his eyes, and says, “I met Esa when we were both so young. We just kept missing each other, but he always made an impression. When he came to Dallas, he was my best friend, and in the months that he’s been missing, I sometimes thought it might kill me.”

He opens his eyes and stares straight at the monster in front of him. “I offer you a confession: I love him. I’ve loved him for years.” 

The cave shakes around him, and he realizes that the creature is laughing. It’s a horrible, teeth-grinding sound. “Do you really think that’s enough?” it says, and the words echo through the room like a death knell. 

Except, then Roope steps forward and grabs John’s hand. Roope, who always finds a way to win, to score, to bail the whole damn team out.

“I love him too," Roope says, and though he suddenly sounds so young, his voice doesn't break. "Not in the same way and not for as long, but he belongs here. He has a home here.” 

Roope is shaking under John’s hand, but he keeps going. “You don’t have any claim to him. He's ours.”

The room tremors and small stones rain down around them from the ceiling. John ducks and pulls Roope under him to shield his head. But as suddenly as it began, it stops. Cautiously, they unfurl and look up and John's eyes go wide.

One of the boulders along the far wall has opened up, and John realizes with a jolt of fear that they weren’t boulders at all, but tips of huge fingers curved up into a massive fist. Inside the giant’s closed hand, he can see a figure lying on the ground. 

He and Roope run forward and the giant’s eye tracks them but says nothing. Reaching in, they grab Esa and pull him out by his shoulders. He’s dangerously thin, and though he’s taller than John, he’s not difficult to carry between the two of them. 

John tries not to show how panicked that makes him. 

They turn, Esa propped between them, and stagger towards the opening. They don’t stop moving until they’re outside, but the moment they leave the cave, John immediately has to grab onto a large outcropping of root as the entire rock form starts to move. The ground shifts underneath their feet and the two of them cling to Esa and each other as the cave mouth seals itself shut. 

And then just as suddenly as it had all begun, it stops and the night is silent and cold all around them.

John nearly collapses against the ground and Roope doesn’t look like he’s faring much better. It feels like his heart is beating at a hundred miles an hour. 

There’s a small noise between them, and he looks over to see Esa’s eyes slowly flutter open. They go wide when he sees John, and at that exact moment, Roope gasps. 

“I remember him,” Roope says, wonderingly. “I remember now. He helped me find an apartment, he helped me learn English.” 

Slowly, Esa looks between them and breaks into a tired grin. When he speaks, his voice is creaky with disuse. “Did you forgot me so easily?” 

Roope laughs with wild abandon, then throws his arms around Esa’s neck. “Never,” he says. John steps back a bit to let them have their moment, and Esa turns fully to embrace Roope. 

“I missed you,” Esa murmurs, and he’s speaking so low that John is barely able to make out when he continues, “missed you like a brother.”

Esa makes eye contact with John over Roope’s shoulder and he’s smiling, though his eyes are a little misty. 

“Hey,” John says.

“Hey,” Esa says, as Roope pulls back. Roope rolls his eyes and leans back in to whisper something in Esa’s ear. 

Roope is a very loud whisperer. It sounds very much like he says, “Go get your man.” Esa goes so red John is briefly worried for him.

“I didn’t forget you,” John says quietly. “I don’t think I can.”

“I know,” Esa says, without taking his eyes off John’s. “Thank you for finding me.”

“Anytime,” John replies. His hands are clammy. 

“Oh my god,” Roope says, and shoves Esa towards John. Esa, who was barely holding himself upright to begin with, stumbles and collapses against John’s chest. He has to grab Esa’s waist with both hands to keep him steady, and Esa freezes with one arm wrapped around John’s shoulders. 

“I dreamed about you,” John says, nonsensically. 

“I was there,” Esa says, but he’s smiling too wide for the chirp to really stick. And John is so overwhelmed to have him here, to have him back and in his arms, that he leans forward and kisses him, hard.

Esa starts in his arms, but then he makes a pleased sound and kisses him back, tired and slow. His mouth is soft against John’s, and he can feel Esa’s eyelashes fluttering. Esa’s other arm comes up to ruck through his hair, and John reflexively tightens his grip on his hips. 

Esa pulls back first, then buries his face in John’s shoulder, breathing heavily. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he says, a little muffled. John wraps his arms around him, holding on tight. 

He stands there for a minute, just holding him and thrilling in the feeling of actually being able to touch him again. “I’m so glad you’re back,” he says as quiet as he can. He repeats it in Swedish and in stumbling Finnish. He wants, needs to make sure Esa understands. 

Distantly, he becomes aware of Roope clapping. “Finally!” he says, but he’s smiling. “Do you know how long I’ve had to listen to this one,” he says, gesturing at Esa, “whine about you?”

John can feel Esa turn his head to start up an argument, so he just leans down and kisses him again. It’s just as good as the first time, maybe even better because this time Esa is smiling and they have to break apart because they’re laughing too hard.

“I’ll spray you with water like feral cats,” Roope promises, but none of them can stop grinning as he moves back around to support Esa’s other side. 

“Let’s go home,” John says. 

They slowly make their way down the mountain. It feels like they’re all holding their breath, but it doesn’t move again. There are no more rock slides or birds or magical snow storms. The night is still and quiet, only broken every so often when Roope almost slips or John stubs his toe against a rock and Esa laughs at them. 

He still looks exhausted, but John can’t take his eyes off him. Roope catches him staring a few times and reaches across Esa’s shoulders to slap at him, and then they all start laughing again, relieved and feeling lighter than they have in weeks. 

They finally make it to the base of the hill, tired and covered in a layer of dust. Carefully, they fit themselves into the car, Esa laying down in the backseat with Roope’s jacket as a pillow. He’s asleep almost as soon as his head hits the seat cushion, but it’s a calm, natural sleep. John pushes Esa’s hair out of his eyes, and spreads his own jacket out over his shoulders like a blanket. 

“Thank you,” Roope says, quietly, “for finding him.”

“I had to,” John says. Then he reaches over and pulls Roope into a hug. “Thanks for helping me. I would have gone crazy without you there.”

“I know,” Roope says, grinning. “It was really all me, honestly. I have to do all the work around here.” 

John rolls his eyes and uses both hands to mess up Roope’s hair. “Yeah, it was all you.”

Roope goes to step into the car, then pauses with his hand on the door handle. “Hey, Klinger, I’m happy for you, but you know I’ll kill you if you ever hurt him, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” John grins, then gets serious. “But, I won’t hurt him.”

Roope shakes his head and finally gets in the car. “Yeah,” he says. “I don’t think you ever could.”

Tomorrow they’ll deal with recuperating and explaining the reappearance of a vanished teammate, but for tonight they have each other. They drive back home and the dark of the night is replaced by a rising Texas sun.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also find me on twitter [@catchascatchcn](https://www.twitter.com/catchascatchcn)!


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